Cat Gunn

Cat Gunn

they/them/their

Website: www.catgunn.com

Instagram: @mango__hot__sauce

My work highlights moments of my life that are romantic, sentimental, nostalgic, and tragic. Through abstraction I create an underlying narrative of growing up queer and transgender, forming relationships, falling in and out of love, and examining the world around me.

My current paintings revolve around the notion of creating space from a queer perspective with a playful awkwardness. These self-contained worlds are made up of repeating stripes, gradated forms, twisted squiggles, and organic shapes. Skewed geometry with hard edges flirt with expressive grounds and fields of color, creating an ambiguous space that is dizzying, strange, and dynamic. The quirky geometry and irregularity of patterns allow for vulnerable and imperfect moments, and are equally about sameness as they are about difference. The work, both as physical objects and as windows into an illusionistic world, suggests a transfer between states— erratic and ever-evolving.

While at UCSD I have been expanding my studio practice to include ceramics. The forms have shifted from vessels that have pinched, twisted bodies to mountainous, volcanic, cavernous entities. These vessel-like sculptures are made of glazed stoneware and draw on stories of my mother's life experiences, especially those of growing up in Manila. They are visually inspired by volcanic landscapes, tropical rainforests, and barrier reefs like those found in the Philippines. The work is also a rigorous investigation into process and material; several glazes and additives are mixed and combined to create various effects and surface textures.